The Dornier Do 32, a collapsible one-man helicopter developed by the Germans in the 1960's. Only three ever flew.

The Dornier Do 32E was a simple, collapsible one man helicopter designed for military use in Germany in the 1960s. Despite initial hopes of large orders and some proposed civilian roles, only three flew.

Development

In the early 1960s, the German Army had an interest in a small helicopter for observation and communications duties that could be folded up compactly enough to be carried in a trailer pulled by a jeep. The Do 32, like several other light helicopters of the time such as the Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter and the Sud-Ouest Djinn, used rotor tip jets to drive the rotor blades. The advantage of tip drive is the absence of torque reaction, making a tail rotor unnecessary, saving weight and simplifying control of the aircraft. Dornier used a small gas turbine to drive a compressor, which fed air out through tubes in the rotors to the tips.[1]

The Do 32 was structurally very simple, with a square section, tapering fuselage behind the pilot. The BMW 6012L turbine and compressor was placed on top of the fuselage, immediately behind the rotor pylon. Its exhaust impinged upon a large rectangular rudder, built to resist thermal stresses, for yaw control. The horizontal tailplane was swept. The pilot sat in front of the rotor pylon, on the simplest of seats carried on the lower longerons. He controlled the plane of the two bladed rotor directly with a long curved hanging arm, and its pitch with a conventional collective pitch lever by his left side. The rudder pedals were almost straight out in front of him on a strut that also carried, beyond his feet, some simple instruments. This member also formed part of the simple three legged undercarriage, each strut ending with an unsprung foot.[1]